WWE SmackDown: Ryback Being Compared to Goldberg Is Ridiculous

Ryback isn't the new Goldberg, just as CM Punk isn't the new Stone Cold and Mason Ryan isn't the new Batista (although the physical resemblance is stunning). You can have traits which compare you to those before you, but the goal should be to make your name the one to be compared to in 15 years.

Goldberg worked because he was presented as just another guy. In his first match against Hugh Morris, Goldberg was the guy everyone thought would lose. If you were a regular viewer of wrestling and watched the match live, you were shocked.

On that night in 1997, you saw a name who had been around in Hugh Morris, and you saw some guy in black tights. The no-name guy, who didn't have an entrance, shocked everybody with his high-octane moves and upset win against a regular of the roster.

Ryback has all the hype, so everyone expects him to win. He is beating local independent talent. The WWE is trying to get extra heat on those talents by making them look and sound bland.

The WWE usually has at least a handful of extras (local independent wrestlers), if not more, at each television taping. These guys are used as jobbers, security guards or whatever the script calls for. I found out that the WWE is now predominantly looking for no long hair and no tattoos.

The WWE tries to help encourage the pop for Ryback by annoying the audience with each jobber making ridiculous claims.

The audio soundtrack of canned heat in Final Cut editing software for WWE SmackDown loves Ryback. He gets a huge pop. The live crowd of the 15,000 watching Ryback in the arena...not so much.

The most legitimate reaction Ryback gets is the chants of "Goldberg." It's not a good sign when you're being heavily pushed and the crowd would rather chant the name of a totally different person who hasn't been with the company in eight years.

Goldberg worked for WCW because WCW needed to be saved. The nWo had been taking over WCW, week by week. With a new member joining, the machine was growing. The staples of the WCW roster were being beat down or joining the machine. WCW needed a hero.

If Ryback wants to save the WWE, have him become a Wall Street expert or an A-list Hollywood actor. Those services would be more suited to save the company in the appropriate departments right now.

Ryback is pitched as a futuristic, terminator-style character. Where is the smoke, pyro and ring attire that doesn't look like RVD's?

Ryback isn't Goldberg—the only thing they have in common is baldness.

Ironically, when Ryback was Skip Sheffield in Nexus, I felt the audience had more interest in him. He was the physical enforcer of the new outlawed group. It was as if a lesser, but still interesting version of Goldberg was in the new nWo.

Instead, now I'm just praying that I don't have to see Ryback have a 173 consecutive wins against characters like Benny Camer.